


Tenderness

by sugar_baby



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Abuse, Blood, Blood and Injury, Childhood Trauma, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Hypersexuality, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Loss, M/M, Mourning, Past Child Abuse, Post-Kings Rising, Sparring, Swordfighting, along with the issues of, because of laurent also talking about the regent, both auguste and the regent, but there is no abuse within the fic it is all just being talked about, however much the regent deserves to be mourned, i marked it as not using archive warnings because no abuse happens in the fic, i need my boys to be there for each other, im tagging hypersexuality because of the reference to laurents unhealthy sexual practices, im trying to make this as healthy as possible i swear, implied/referenced hypersexuality, its just processing, so just putting it out there, so the teen rating is all for adult themes, spoilers in tags ahead btw, theres actually no sex in this fic wow, this fic addresses heavy topics such as, this is all about laurent processing his losses, uhhh, while we all know nothing laurent does is healthy for him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 18:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17249540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugar_baby/pseuds/sugar_baby
Summary: Laurent has lost his brother and his father and his uncle; the only family he has left is himself, and Damen. Despite the long years since his brother's passing, Laurent struggles to let him go. Good thing Damen will always be there for him to ease the pain.





	Tenderness

“I told myself I would never fall for a man who wasn’t just as good as my brother.”

Damen was in the middle reviewing a missive from their Vaskian embassy, and he stilled and looked up.

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

“You haven’t fully mourned that loss,” Damen stated, turning toward him, “It festers like an open wound. I can see it in you.”

Laurent looked at him like he had said something surprising for a half second, but then his face turned cold and he barked out a laugh.

“Oh, yes, it’s been seven years and I still haven’t mourned him.”

“You haven’t moved on. You haven’t let him go, is what I mean. He still sits on your brow and over your breast like the week after Marlas.”

Laurent turned from him and Damen heard him take a deep breath. There was a moment of stretched silence.

“I know you blame my uncle.”

Damen stood up and made a single step toward him, his golden form enhanced by a halo of lamplight from the side table in front of them.

“You know I do.”

Another small step, careful of Laurent’s inconsistent boundaries.

“You mourn him, too.”

Laurent snorted, “Who mourns a traitor?” He was holding himself, Damen could see, arms crossed in front of him. Laurent’s shoulders had softened slightly. Damen closed the distance and put his hands on Laurent’s arms above his own.

“You deserve that tenderness ripped away from you, _my love.”_ The last endearment was said lowly in Akielon, something intimate reserved only for Laurent. The shiver that overtook him overrode the motion to shove Damen’s hands off of him.

Damen trailed his hands up to Laurent’s shoulders, only fingertips and feather-light, until he gripped firmly at his destination. His thumbs pressed behind shoulder blades. _“Let me,”_ he said, and it was clear what he was suggesting, the word left unspoken.

_Let me attend you._

Laurent shoved away from him, shedding his own jacket as haphazardly as possible for a Veretian.

“Do not attempt to placate another loss with sex. I’ve had enough of that.”

“Laurent—“ he said quickly, and Laurent flinched at his own name.

“You know I mean no such thing. I am no such pervert. I…” Damen realized how odd it would sound to Laurent, so he paused, but continued, willing to show his true intentions, “I only wish to try and provide you comfort.”

“Would you suck my cock if I asked it of you?”

“Laurent—“

“I want for it at the worst times and for the worst reasons.” Softly, bitterly.

Laurent flumped onto the bed with a practiced Veretian air of carelessness, then stuck out a hand with an amount of arrogance that Damen, as king, should have found supremely insulting.

“Go on then, attend me.”

Damen saw a chance to subvert, to meet a need that Laurent was probably aware of but could never admit. He came to stand next to Laurent, undoing the laces of one arm, fingers liberally brushing against his skin as he did so, not quite a caress, but also certainly not a necessary contact to unlace him.

The other arm was quick, and he maneuvered behind him, knees on the bed, to undo the back of his top. He pushed Laurent’s hair aside, hands on the back of his neck, and got to work. Again, Damen aimed to land somewhere between sensual and sedate, a comfort rather than a suggestion of something more in his touches, and certainly not clinical. When the garment was off, revealing a thin silk undershirt, Damen pressed a kiss to the back of Laurent’s neck, on the protruding bump of his spine.

He pulled away and actually knelt in front of him, which made Laurent sit up straighter, as he unlaced and pulled off his boots and socks. He leaned in to unlace his trousers at the crotch, careful again, not to be suggestive, and pulled them off of Laurent. At this point Laurent seemed to be half in a trance, letting it be done to him. Damen went one step further and leaned down to take Laurent’s bare foot in his hands, the left one, and almost prostrate to the ground, he turned it slightly upward and pressed a kiss to the bottom of it. He thought he may have heard the slightest intake of breath from above him, only slightly out of normal rhythm. His ears were always piqued with Laurent. He moved to kiss the inner bump of bone at his ankle, afterward his nose ghosting up the inside of Laurent’s calf, and pressed another kiss to his knee.

_“My love,”_ he said, just above a whisper, locking eyes with him from his knelt vantage.

Laurent turned his head away from him, fast enough that his hair bounced with the motion of it.

Damen stood, bracing his cuffed hand to the ground to do so, and spoke quietly, but with purpose.

“He was the last tenderness you received. Your uncle was only a ghost of that; a manipulator, a pretender. He offered you a comfort that was barbed with lies and conditions, but you were vulnerable, and young.”

“You think I don’t know that? I should have seen; I should have known, then, his intentions. I had noticed the wander of his eye before, to those… my age, at the time. I thought, though, he was my uncle, my family, my only family. The only thing left to me,” Laurent’s hands were white knuckled fists against the satin sheets, “I could not let him abandon me,” Damen saw him shaking, “I had to do whatever I could to please him.”

The last two words were spat out through grinded teeth, venomous and searing.

“You cannot place blame on that child, who was never expected to bear this burden,” he did not say, no one could be expected to bear this burden. 

Damen sat down, gingerly, a few inches from him, leaving a berth between them.

“Laurent, my heart, he was wicked, and never your family. A man like that has no family, no loved ones, and deserves no love himself.”

_“He had my love, Damen,”_ Laurent said, words laced with something inexplicable. Damen held that silence for a moment.

“I… I know,” said Damen.

“...There is no shame in those feelings, either,” said Damen.

Laurent stood up abruptly, picking his trousers up from the floor, “I’m not ready to retire yet. Accompany me.”

Laurent slipped back into his trousers and also back into his boots, and Damen stood and followed bewildered for just a few minutes down torch lit corridors until he realized the familiar root they were taking.

Down to the training grounds. 

Soon sawdust was under their feet and they had both picked up swords, much to Damen’s chagrin. He of course was always energized by a sparring session, but their conversation still hung unresolved between them. It was unlike Laurent to go anywhere outside of their rooms less than impeccably dressed, yet here he was, only in trousers and an undershirt.

“Don’t go easy on me, Damianos. Make me bleed if you have to. Don’t stop until I’ve been… Thoroughly beaten myself.”

“Laurent, are you sure about this? Tell me you’re sure about this.”

Laurent stilled to lock eyes with him, “Damen,” he said with more care than Damen expected from him at this point, “This is what I need.”

Somehow, this eased Damen’s mind and he set his shoulders, rolling one and mentally preparing himself. He still couldn’t quite bring himself to attack Laurent right out of the gate, but he was resolved to fight him hard, and fairly. 

They squared up, and Damen kept himself guarded, letting Laurent take the first move. He lunged forward and made a series of moves, quick, yet complicated and ferocious out of the gate. Damen blocked and parried them easily, but he could feel the tension in his swordplay. Their conversation was underneath this, and even wordlessly, it was playing out here. Laurent was tight and unbreakable in his moves, not giving Damen a single opening, and he let Laurent push him back a step. For once, between them, Laurent was primarily on the offensive. He blocked him again and again, until both of them had worked up a sweat, and to take some advantage, when Laurent came at him again, he parried, and created an opening, shouldering forward with brute force that he knew Laurent couldn’t match, breaking his stance. He knocked Laurent’s shoulder with the hilt of his sword, and Laurent stumbled back, grunting. Laurent immediately went for his open flank, and Damen jumped back, knocking into a training post with his hip. He squared his jaw, and invigorated, began to circle Laurent.

“How do you want this to go, Laurent?” 

“I want to win, Damianos. I always want to win,” he was turning slowly, bit by bit, to keep his eyes on Damen. They both knew that Laurent still couldn’t beat Damen one on one like this. Laurent wasn’t going to win. Damen waited.

“I want to be immobile by the end of this. You know how to work a man until he can no longer retaliate.”

“Until he can no longer listen to his doubts and misgivings, Laurent. I always allow you to retaliate,” Damen paused, “You want me to convince you to take it? Take what you need?”

Laurent didn’t have to give him a verbal affirmative. The glint in his eyes was enough.

Damen let him have it.

\--

_“My heart,_ you’re bleeding,” Damen said lowly, to Laurent’s kneeling form, as he struggled to right himself, blood from his shoulder slowly ruining his undershirt.

“Let me get up. I can do that much myself.”

Damen waited. It took him a minute, and it was only a little painful to watch, “I’ll get a bandage,” he said, and walked to a cabinet that they had nearly overturned at some point, leaning down to unearth some bandages. As he was looking away from Laurent, he thought he heard the cold sound of a blade unsheathing. He forced himself not to react. He could let Laurent have this. 

And there was a dagger against his throat.

“Oh, you’ve caught me, _my love,”_ he said, putting his hands up and dropping the bandage into the sawdust.

“You let me approach. I could see.”

Damen did not respond to that, “You have my unconditional surrender, my King,” he said.

“I know.”

Indeed, he’d had it for a long time now.

Laurent lowered his knife and allowed Damen to stoop and dust off the bandage, and then to peel open his undershirt, now sticking to him both with sweat and blood, and wrap a bandage tightly around his arm, right under his armpit. 

“Come to bed, then?”

“Yes, that did something.” Laurent said.

When they were back in their rooms, Damen having shut the door, Laurent said, “He was never as kind as you. He never let me have a victory, from the beginning,” he was undoing his trousers and slipping them off with his boots, “He was always just as unbeatable as you, never as kind,” Laurent said, “It was you who made me realize that my role was not destined to be the perpetual loser. That I had a kingdom, and I had not yet lost it,” he sat down on the bed, “Before… I was only fulfilling a title. I was fulfilling it for him, all the time, but after six years, my promise had become hollow. I never believed I was as good as him. I never have been.”

“You were never meant to be his double,” Damen said, “You know you can think circles around me. This is both a strength and a weakness. You were the one who defeated your uncle, with Loyse, and I never even anticipated this,” Damen paused to catch Laurent’s gaze, “I am not sure your brother could have done as much.”

Laurent snorted, “Of course he could have, and quicker than I! And he would have never let himself be…”

“You did not let yourself,” Damen said sternly, “He made you. Even in your most willing of states, you know he manipulated you. You know this.”

“Now we’re talking circles. Put out that lamp, I need to retire.”

“Laurent,” Damen said, “Your uncle, he never would have let Auguste survive, even if I didn’t get to him first. He didn’t hesitate killing his own brother on the front.”

“I… I know.”

“You had no fault in his death.”

“I…”

“Laurent. None of this was your fault.”

Laurent held himself very still, and said, collected, “I’m glad he died when he did.”

“He died thinking our court was in one piece. If it was me in his place, that would have meant he would have had to face my uncle. Would have had to… do that. I’m glad it was me. Me who suffered, ultimately.”

Looking up to Damen, “You think he only didn’t kill me also because I was young enough to fuck?”

A full body tremor went through Damen, and he had to look away for a moment to recompose himself before he faced Laurent again, only in boxers before him, the most open and vulnerable he has nearly ever been before him.

“I… Don’t pretend to know his mind. That was probably part of it,” he paused, “Killing all of you at once would have been too suspicious.”

“He could have killed me after I stopped being a proper cocksleeve,” Laurent bit out, and Damen was dizzy with his contempt, unsure how to respond yet again.

“He… I don’t know, Laurent. I don’t know,” Damen took a breath and sat down next to him, on the side of his uninjured shoulder, “Just know that you owe him nothing,” he fell silent for a moment, but then, almost as an afterthought, repeated himself, “Nothing.”

Laurent nodded minutely.

Damen scooted closer to him, depositing around him to grip well underneath his injured shoulder, instead of around it. Laurent turned his head into Damen’s chest ever so slightly, and he heard him say quietly, more to himself than to Damen, partly muffled by his own chest, “I miss him.”

Damen didn’t know which ‘him’ he was referring to, his uncle or his brother, but he hoped it was the latter. Regardless, his other hand reached up to pet through his hair, and he pressed his lips to the top of his golden head and said, “I know, _my love,_ I know.”


End file.
